Holiday Night
by Mindicent
Summary: Just a little something I thought of after watching Holiday Knight. Enjoy!


She watched him swing away from the world in which he felt safe. The world of black and white; of right and wrong. He left his boxy little friend in some grubby little police pub. She watched as the blind-lady of Gotham wandered out of the pub in search of her vice. Of her dark Knight.

Sorry, Commissioner. Tonight, on New Year's Eve, things would begin anew and changes would take shape. She watched on the rooftop of a nearby hotel as her future began to become more solid in front of her. He landed on the rooftop, but remained in her peripheral vision, waiting for her waiting for him.

"Abandoned the costume for the night?" he asked, raising his eyebrow in a manner most quizzical. She looked down at the dark-green silk with the plunging display.

"As requested," she replied evenly, eyes lowered as to act demurely in situations where one wanted to appear less threatening. Secretly, the cat was aching for approval; it was not like her to abandon black and stretchy for green and slinky and she was feeling rather exposed.

"You look stunning," he said after a moment of quiet reflection on how best to approach this de-clawed cat. She looked up and gave him her familiar slyness hidden behind white teeth. She leaned back against the railing of the rooftop.

"Are you planning to attend in full Kevlar or do you have a tux in that belt of yours?" she purred at him. He sighed, feeling very much the unease of a love-struck Veronian gentleman who found himself in Athens instead. Lord, what fools these mortals be.

"Can we go inside first? I have had a weird holiday-season," he asked, shaking his head. She stilled the hummingbird-heart that he managed to waken and nodded, opening glass doors to their temporary home where the inside had none of the outside's clarity.

Grey. They had become each-other's grey.

He crossed the room to where a fire had been generously trying to share its warmth, sinking down in an armchair that she had placed there. Was she always this thoughtful?

"So I leave Gotham for a week and you let this city go to seed? Bruce, what shall I do with you," she scolded the petulant 10-year-old, scowling at her from behind a 32-year-old face. However, he pulled off his cowl, mopping sweat from his brow and transformed into a tired and sad man without age to distinguish him.

"First, Ivy and Harley teamed up and took me shopping (Many years of schooling her emotions and hard knocks allowed her to keep a straight face in order to save his). After $32000, I had decided to call it quits and give them some time to mediate on their evils. Then, Clay-Face attacked a toy shop, though Batgirl dealt with that very well. And finally, the Joker decided just now to pull off some resolution to murder the citizens of Gotham before The Ball dropped." Being finished, he looking up to her for recognition of his brave deeds and perhaps reward for his hard work. However, the Bat was not an ordinary man whose deeds are sung in golden halls. And the Cat was not a woman who sung deeds, or forgave tardy dinner-dates.

"Well, if you think defeating the Joker will get you off, you are mistaken, Mr. Wayne," she said in mock-seriousness.

The mock was not received. "You know what I am, Selina. What I do. You need to understand that I won't always been there for every appointment and if that is what you need, then maybe this can't work." Mountains of muscles were moved as the tensed for a painful release from their relationship.

Inwardly rolling her eyes at his pragmatic deficits, she sighed and ran her fingers lightly through his damp hair.

"You know the one thing which that will really not make this work? You coming up with lists upon lists why this will fail." Willing-and-flexible perched on the edge of a coffee table in front of Willing-yet-unbending. "Look, Bruce, I am trying. Really, trying here. No stealing, not for 6 months. I have come clean about everything with you, and I understand you need time. All I ask is that you try, Bruce, and not damn everything before we really get started. No ultimatums, no conditions, no contract."

He nodded mutely, acknowledging the hit. The 10-year-old lowered his head and croaked, "I am sorry I missed New Year's Eve. I know it meant a lot to you."

She gazed at him thoughtfully, "Well, only now that you are here," she said quietly. He held out his arms to her and she settled herself in his lap, laying her head down on his shoulder, feeling a million times heavier than she was. "I don't care about some count-down or champagne. I just...I don't know. I wanted to prove to you I could do this. That I was going to be better. That we could start new and make this work."

He sighed deeply, causing her to rising and fall with his breathing as she rose with his praise and attention and fell with his disappointment and disapproval. "I am sorry. You seem to be the only one who is trying here. How about for my New Year's resolution, I promise to be better at this?"

She sat up and faced him at his proposed impossibility. "Bruce, I don't want you to be better. I love you, with all of your insecurities and your suspicions and your wonderful ideas for a better future. If you could promise to try, that would be enough for me," she replied slowly to him, making sure he understood as men can be slow and are often stupid. Sure enough, he continued to stare at her for a long time after she had said that. He could have lied to her twice over and she would have melted into the puddle that would soon become her green silk dress.

Finally, and ever so slowly, he nodded. Not realizing she had been holding her breath, she let it out no so slowly. He scooped her up and then set her back on her feet. Turning around, he reached for two flutes of champagne long since abandoned with her hopes of the fabled mid-night kiss. He checked his watch. "It's still New Year's eve in Chicago, or it will be in the next ten seconds."

Grinning like the Cheshire himself (Hatter would have been proud), she snaked her arms around his neck, extending her toes in order to lean her forehead against his. Brain for brain. Heart for heart. She relaxed her muscles and allowed herself to be held and mollified as Bruce whispered the age-old count in her ears; five, four, three, two, one.

"Happy New Year, Selina," he murmured, holding her tightly like he wished he could all the time.

"Happy New Year, Bruce," she replied demurely, inwardly reeling from sheer happiness and bubbles in champagne glasses.

Then lips B found lips C and the rest was blissful haze.


End file.
